When this was written, Horace had got far beyond the Epicurean creed of his youth. He had come to believe in the active intervention of a Supreme Disposer of events in the government of the world,--"_insignem attenuans, obscura promens_" (Odes, I. 34):-- "The mighty ones of earth o'erthrowing, Advancing the obscure;"-- and to whose "pure eyes and perfect witness" a blameless life and a conscience void of offence were not indifferent. CHAPTER VII. HORACE'S POEMS TO HIS FRIENDS.--HIS PRAISES OF CONTENTMENT. If it be merely the poet, and not the lover, who speaks in most of Horace's love verses, there can never be any doubt that the poems to his friends come direct from his heart. They glow with feeling. To whatever chord they are attuned, sad, or solemn, or joyous, they are always delightful; consummate in their grace of expression, while they have all the warmth and easy flow of spontaneous emotion. Take, for example, the following (Odes, II. 7). Pompeius Varus, a fellow-student with Horace at Athens, and a brother in arms under Brutus, who, after the defeat of Philippi, had joined the party of the younger Pompey, has returned to Rome, profiting probably by the general amnesty granted by Octavius to his adversaries after the battle of Actium. How his heart must have leapt at such a welcome from his poet-friend as this!-- "Dear comrade in the days when thou and I With Brutus took the field, his perils bore, Who hath restored thee, freely as of yore, To thy home gods, and loved Italian sky, "Pompey, who wert the first my heart to share, With whom full oft I've sped the lingering day, Quaffing bright wine, as in our tents we lay, With Syrian spikenard on our glistening hair? "With thee I shared Philippi's headlong flight, My shield behind me left, which was not well, When all that brave array was broke, and fell In the vile dust full many a towering wight. "But me, poor trembler, swift Mercurius bore, Wrapped in a cloud, through all the hostile din, Whilst war's tumultuous eddies, closing in, Swept thee away into the strife once more. "Then pay to Jove the feasts that are his fee, And stretch at ease these war-worn limbs of thine Beneath my laurel's shade; nor spare the wine Which I have treasured through long years for thee. "Pour till it touch the shining goblet's rim, Care-drowning Massic; let rich ointments flow From amplest conchs! No measure we shall know! What! shall we wreaths of oozy parsley trim, "Or simple myrtle? Whom will Venus[1] send To rule our revel? Wild my draughts shall be As Thracian Bacchanals', for 'tis sweet to me To lose my wits, when I regain my friend." [1] Venus was the highest cast of the dice. The meaning here is, Who shall be the master of our feast?--that office falling to the member of the wine-party who threw sixes.